C O L L A P S E: A Tale of War
by Sara Darkotter
Summary: Hogwarts collapsed, and when the surviving teens emerged from the rubble, they found their country at war, once again. Third time should do the trick...Or collapse it ALL. Next Gen, sequel to Shadows
1. Chapter 1: Lilies Fall

Okay, so it was an hour-fourty-five, not an hour. I'm sorry!

For newcomers: This is a sequel to Shadows: A Tale in Letters. If you do not read that before this, some of the events may be a touch confusing, but I shall do my best to explain them.

Onward!

* * *

Lily watched the elk bound away, wisps of mist on its edges, people cowering, realizing that there was something completely unnatural about those footsteps because they weren't students.

"Place it here. Should bring it down," a clear voice says. Lily, heart pounding in her chest, has a sudden bout of courage and creeps from her dorm, slipping open the door.

Three people, on the stairs, a strange device and their wands at ready.

"Get away!" she shrieked, and their eyes, as one, focused on her. Instead of failing like she thought, her courage grew, and she hissed a hex that sent one flying back, tap-dancing uncontrollably while he attempted to juggled with the air. He opened his mouth and the words to "Weasley Is Our King" came pouring out.

The device was dropped. It clacked.

It went off in a flash of light and the entire building echoed with it, the sound of walls blowing out.

It took out the common room.

The stairs went out from underneath her to a woman's triumphant and sneering face and the words to Weasley Is Our King.

"_He never leaves a single ring..."_

§º§

Lily wakes to screaming.

"Lily! PLEASE wake up! Come on, Lily-mazing!"

She should've know that voice, but her head was groggy and couldn't quite focus on anything, and the screaming didn't help. There was a crushing weight on her chest, but she could raise her head, which she did with regret. Pain lanced everywhere, like a migraine, a headache and falling off her broom on the Quidditch pitch all at once. She blinked several times before she realized that she could only open one eye-the other was sealed shut.

"Lily! You're okay! I was worried that Professor Neville's charm-Lily!" Lucy arm circled her neck gently, and she noticed the nails were rather sharp...

"You've got whiskers, Lucy," she said stupidly. "Why?"

"Cause I'm an animagus because it sounded cool, and I always meant to register but I didn't know what Molly-sis or Dad or Mum would think!"

Her one eye looked at Lucy's face, the slitting eyes and the nose that was a strange pink at the tip and turning into a bit of a muzzle shape, the small dent in her upper lip and the short whiskers, the pointing ears and their fuzz, and all she could say was,

"You got into my stuff, last month. That was private!"

"I'm sorry! Hold still-Professor Neville-He died casting a charm that saved all of us from dying in the fall. But lots of us are still buried." Lucy moved out of her vision, and she was struck by the thought that she shouldn't have been able to see. Shouldn't it have been pure black? "Sorry, can you reach my wand? I can't see what I'm doing!" Her voice raised in panic.

Oh.

She carefully craned her head, finally focusing on a small length of wood glowing blue at its end. "No. Too far."

Lucy's hand stretched out to it in her vision, grabbing it, and suddenly things were thrown into shadow and light. Rocks, panels, rafters, surrounding her, too close. There was a thick beam over them, creating a little tent in the rubble, where Lucy was crouched and her head was located. A crunch and a groan, her chest stabbed with pain, and Lucy pulled her into the tiny space, cramping it. Her entire body ached and seared with pain, but she supposed it was better than feeling nothing.

Wait... She should check, she was groggy. Da's lessons came to mind, calm and cool and collected. She focused on her head first, noting all the aches and concentrating on them. Aware of her head, she spread her thoughts outward. Neck, her shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, fingers... She flexed each finger, smiling at only tiny jolts of pain. Ribs, she counted down as she took careful breaths to no deep tearing pains, her entire torso felt like bruises and tiny cuts but it was just that.

It was here that she realized that everything stopped at the knee. There was nothing. No pain, no feeling, she couldn't even feel the jeans on her legs. She turned her head slowly, silently praising the pains in the rest of herself. Her knees were there. She tried to wiggle a foot. Nothing. She turned onto her back, sitting up and reaching out to place a hand on her calf.

It was like it was someone else's flesh.

"I can't feel my calves," she said conversationally. "So what happened to Professor Longbottom?"

"He-He was torn to shreds, Lily. He was standing only a few feet from it. I was right next to him. The other people were too, the woman's face came off. It was sickening." Lucy sounded in shock. Lily had found that her emotions had locked on her. Nothing. No hurt, no fear, no anger, nothing but a rational mind. Defense. She pretended it was the words of a case report, filing it away. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Lucy." She looked at the ancient timber beam above her. "So. Should we try to dig out? We can't stay down here."

"But we could easily collapse everything on ourselves! And you said so yourself. You can't feel your legs-"

"Part of my legs."

"You can't go anywhere fast enough to escape falling-"

Lily pulled out her wand. "Are you a witch or not?"

She had never heard of any spell for curing her paralysis. She doubted one existed. Of course, something not existing had never stopped her, which is why she had invented the bubble curse back in the beginning of the year. And she didn't need to cure it, she just needed her leg muscles to work. She imagined her legs, the muscle underneath, imagined magic flowing in and tightening them and loosening, and finally dug up a few nonsense vowels and consonants. As Lily had discovered, spells didn't ALWAYS have to be in Latin, they just worked better that way.

"Sor-eh-sus," she whispered, rolling the word around and then putting that in her memory as well. If only she had paper.

If she had paper, she could write a letter, actually. That would be nice. Write to mum, even if she never got to mail it.

Or write to Scorpius.

Scorpius. His common room was underground... Was he alive? Or crushed under rubble? She really desperately hoped not. She had just gotten him, he was finally HERS, she couldn't...

She slid her wand back into the loops holding it to her thigh, beginning to stand. Her calves responded, moving, her feet finding the ground. But she still couldn't feel them there, it felt... So odd. Like she was on stilts.

"Are we going to get out?"

"Hello?" a muffled voice called.

"Who's there?" Lucy yelled back.

"It's Molly Weasley! The second!"

"Molly-sis! It's Lucy and Lily!"

Lucy's image blurred for a moment, body rapidly changing before a little ginger cat jumped up onto a chuck of stone, squeezing through a tiny space. Lily sighed. "Wish I could do that."

But she couldn't. After all, between her friends, and cousins, and annoying Scorpius (And now snogging. Oh, and he was marvelous at it, the way he-ahem) and classes and homework, where was there any time to be animals? She supposed she might be able to squeeze it in somewhere, but now the library was probably ash and rubble, she would have to find other places...

Of course, when Lily thought of the knowledge that had been lost now, all those spells and curses and ideas, buried in dry writing and extra e's, she felt a touch of sadness, but shook it away before the feeling overtook her.

Lucy came back, squeezing into the tiny space. Lily shrugged off the block she hadn't realized she'd been leaning against.

"We have to get Molly-sis! She's in a tiny area, broken arm and in fetal position, it's so tiny! Come on!" Lucy began to carefully shift stones, and Lily watched, almost a bit amazed at the way she stacked the mess so it supported itself but made room. Testing her legs, she limped awkwardly next to her, trying the same thing.

It was as if her hands knew where things needed the support, where she should tuck that little pebble so it supported that beam just enough. It wasn't like she was being told what to do, it was like she knew the answer to a problem, but couldn't explain the steps. She just knew.

It was an impossibly small path, they created, bent double and shifting stones. Before long-was it long?-her arms began to ache with strain, her spine creaking in her ears, even though she knew it was silent. Tiny cuts bled, clotted, bled, and when they finally broke through into the space, all she did was sit down, stretch and listen to the tiny cracks of approval as her bones settled back into place.

Molly really was bent double, curled around her arm, head to her knees. Strands of ginger hair stuck to her face.

"Come on, Molls."

She crawled into the tunnel, and Lily watched the rocks there settled lower to the ground. Snatching the quill lying among the mess, she looked at it. Blue and silver, self-inking, neatly cut and trimmed. "Nice," Lily whispered. She was keeping this. She shoved it into the pocket of her school robes, then looked at her older cousin. "Let me see your arm. James taught me a few spells. After I broke my arm in Quidditch practice last year?"

Molly only whimpered slightly, and she began to run her wand over the afflicted limb, whispering the spell. Within seconds, it began to knit back together.

"There! Rough job, but it will do. I'm sure a school nurse survived!"

"If we get out of here..."

Lucy's gloomy statement was right. There was nowhere to go, no way to get out. Lily drew her knees to her chest, trying to ignore how odd it felt.

'_Scorpius...' _Her throat closed as she thought of him, that she might never see him again, kiss him, hold him, that she might never get to spend long nights hidden in his arms or bodies crushed impossibly close together.

'_Scorpius...'_

* * *

Yup! Dark right off! Kinda a Shadows reverse, with its laughs right off the bat. I promise that it will be just as good, however!

Review! Comments, predictions, ideas, opinions, tears of blood... Whatever goes!


	2. Chapter 2: Scorpions Trapped

Here it be! The next chapter! No guarantee that I'll have the next chapter up tomorrow, but you can always hope!

* * *

'_Scorpius...' _The name seemed to come to him from the very stones. Of course, that wasn't possibly, but Scorpius had a major headache, almost a migraine, behind his eyes. Looking around his common room, he tried to figure why he had heard rumbling. Everything looked fine...

"Oh good, the children are waking up. Hello, boys and girls."

The voice made him shiver in fear. Silky and smooth and light, like his grandfather when he was well and truly angry. Scorpius lifted his aching head from the cool stones, eyes blurring a moment before they saw her.

She was a young woman, wearing a tight work skirt and a button-up dress shirt, high heels and her wand held delicately in her fingertips. She was relaxing in the gloom-the fire had gone out, leaving the dark armchair almost invisible. A first-year girl lay at her feet, still.

Slowly, others began to sit up, focusing on her. As they woke, her thin smile, noticeable from the gleam of green fire still on a far-off nook, stretched farther across her face. Scorpius shivered again. It was a very predatory look.

"Come on, sit up, up! Now, is everyone here? It's afterhours, you should be."

They stayed silent, staring at her.

"Oh, children. Come on. It's a simple answer."

"What happens to anyone who is?" Al asked, voice laden with suspicion.

"Oh, nothing does. It's just that they're dead."

The air, already cold, felt even colder against Scorpius's skin. No. No. NO. It couldn't-Lily...

He almost whispered her name aloud, hoping that if he did, she would come, prove this woman wrong. She was Lily. Lily Luna Potter. Nothing could...

There was a quiet groan of pain from Al.

"You see, children, we collapsed the rest of the building. You're the lucky survivors. You'll even get to leave-if your parents pay. If not, no problem, you'll slowly suffocate in here, or starve..."

She slowly stood, stretching. "Now, there will be no communications to your parents, no talking to your Housemates, I don't know if I can TRUST you yet!" She sounded both sad and incredulous. "So children, show me you trust me. Call me Aunty. And that's Uncle!"

A man, dressed in a suit and also no more than twenty-five, stood from a corner. He had a second-year, Charlie Bainbridge, by the back of his school robes.

"Now these two, Miss Baddock and Mister Bainbridge, they're our special friends. They go with us everywhere. But if you try to hurt your Aunty, she will hurt too, she loves me that much. If you try to escape, break your Aunty's heart, she will too."

Baddock raised her head, eyes dull with pain.

"Miss Baddock is already hurt enough. Poor girl. She collapsed in a fit and hit her back, she can't walk. You don't want to make her more upset."

"She tortured me, Marky," she said to her brother. "It hurt." She sounded stunned, surprised, but resigned all at the same time.

"Oh, don't say such things about Aunty, Miss Baddock. I don't like that." She nudged her jaw with a high heel. Then she turned back to them. "Do be good, children. We have people contacting your parents. We may insist that you go home soon, if you're good. Otherwise, we might not tell them at all."

Scorpius hung his head. They were trapped with a madwoman.

"Now, who's missing? I hate to think of one of our little nephews or nieces being out there."

"Deryn Zabini."

"Lyra Nott."

"Oh, how unfortunate. Were they lovers?"

The room suddenly filled with unspoken giggles. Them? Lyra, the school slut, and Zabini? He was dating-

Scorpius cut off the thought because that name was leading back to-

Lily. His Lily...

"No m-Aunty. Lyra was going to send a late note to her mother. Zabini had already been gone for an hour, with his girlfriend."

"Oh, who's that?"

"It doesn't matter. They're dead."

Scorpius had only just found out but already hated that word. Dead. Four letters with nothing gentle to their sounds, painful and not a hint of anything but bitterness. And absolute.

He clenched a hand slightly, slowly sitting up and resting his palms on his thighs, concentrating on anything but Aunty, his Housemates, everything alive. It was like when Lily had rejected him, but worse, because she couldn't realize her mistake, finish a note and get back to him.

But it also had a painful glow of denial, hope, because after all, there was always survivors to building collapses. She could be one.

"Oh, don't despair, little Malfoy. I'm sure your family will pay handsomely to get you out soon. After all, the only child of a broken little family like yours? They need you back to take over their company one day."

Scorpius didn't look up, not a glance at the heels before him.

"When I speak, I like to be acknowledged. Don't you?"

He stared at the floor. Something in him, a family carryover, raged that this-thing-was treating him like a child, when he was so much more powerful and influential-

Not that he truly was anymore. Broken family, like she said.

But something even bigger was tired, sad, that tiny lift of having Lily having collapsed already.

A high heel caught him in the cheek. His head slammed back, but other than the burst of signal from his nerves, he couldn't feel anything. Fallen right back into his emotionless survival state.

"Oh dear, that must hurt," she purred. Scorpius blinked at her, sitting back up like nothing had happened. "Well, go to bed, all of you. Uncle and I will know if you're talking though. And we don't want that, do we?"

Scorpius inspected the stones a moment, noting their little faded lines and the worn trails students had created over centuries in vague interest. His cheek throbbed, he stood with creaking limbs and dusted himself off, following the backs of Housemates as they climbed the stairs, mind blank and heart heavy. Things had been going so well. He had Lily, his father hadn't minded, he had felt alive-

And it was gone in an instant. He settled on his bed in his dorm, staring at the floor, noticing the things on the floor and deciding that they really shouldn't have been there. As he picked up clothes and things and papers, he began to feel extremely machine-like, automatic, frozen over from person to thing.

Again.

He put his own things in his trunk, handed Al and Baddock theirs, (Baddock immediately dropped it all, eyes wide) and, with a slight wave of sadness, dumped Zabini's on his bed, like this might make his suddenly appear, with a goodnatured yell towards the "asshole who-oh wait, that's mine."

Scorpius managed to roll his eyes at the memory before sitting on his bed, headboard stiff against his spine as he pulled the curtains shut. It muffled the silence, cut the chill, hid Al's stunned, teary face from view. Maybe as auror's son he was used to the idea of one day losing his father, but his sister?

It was less painful to think of her that way, as Al's sister. There had always been a measure of distance between Scorpius and Al's sister. There had been almost none to Lily, even when they hurled insults across the halls.

Scorpius drew his knees to his chest, ignoring his cheek, and carefully hoarding memories of a beautiful red-head.

Shadow Lily.

* * *

Scorpius has two nicknames for Lily: Infinity Lily and Shadow Lily. Cute, right?

Review!


	3. Chapter 3: In The Ministry

Here is our semi-humorous chapter. Tried to keep it on track, so...

Enjoy the adults and their letters.

* * *

Potter§

As you are Head Auror, Hogwarts Alumni and fellow father of a Hogwarts student, (Three! How did you have the time to have THREE?) I figured you might want this as evidence. It is a message that arrived by a post office eagle owl.

Really, I'm surprised your Potter-senses didn't warn us. No pain in the old scar?

Sincerely,

Draco Malfoy§

P.S: The scar comment was an obligatory jackass move. My apologies.

§º§

[_The ransom note_]

Malfoy Family,

You will have heard about the collapse by now. You may be worried about your child. You may even think he is dead.

But, if you send five hundred thousand galleons by owl to the Hogwarts site, you can get him back, alive. Right now, he is trapped. If you don't pay, he will die. If you inform anyone of this, he will be cursed.

§º§

Malfoy,

You may have just risked your son's health and sanity to show this to me. Why?

I won't tell you how I found the time to have three kids, because I don't discuss my sex life with anyone but the person immediately involved in it: Ginny.

And yes, the arse comment is forgiven. Don't be a repeat-offender, though.

˜Harry Potter

§º§

Potter,

I'm risking his health and sanity because I'm sure St. Mungo's can cure almost anything (Family business sells medical supplies to them), and his freedom is worth about as much.

Being caged does odd things to him, and I need help to get him out soon, and you're the only hope I have. My family will donate money, supplies, whatever you need. But get those kids out. There must be more survivors than Score...

It's the farthest we will be able to reach. I am already receiving death threats from people, thinking my family is behind this. We are going to retreat into hiding. We have been in the thick of two wars, we want little to do with a third.

Sincerely,

Draco Malfoy§

§º§

[_A newspaper clipping, buried in the ads_]

In a surprisingly bold move, three anonymous people infiltrated Malfoy Manor grounds and attacked the family within today. It is not yet known if this attack was conducted because of believed connections to the attack on Hogwarts by parents or by the criminals themselves, as the attackers have not yet been apprehended and the Malfoy family is confirmed missing. A proxy is control of their vast company, thought to be Andromeda Tonks, the disowned sister of Narcissa, who has never shown interest in her sister's company and likely will not start now.

§º§

Harry, looking over the report once again, pulled off his glasses and massaged his temples. Nobody was really trying too hard to look for the attackers and there was even less of an attempt to find the Malfoys. Of course, maybe if he explained that all that nice, new, search-and-rescue gear had been bought with that money...

Not that he would, since the crew would demand it be sent back.

Harry wasn't worried about the Malfoys. There hadn't been enough of a mess at the scene, and the magic in the air didn't feel of death. They would be back in a few days, no worse for wear, and quietly resettling into the giant they called a house.

In fact, there was Draco's owl, right now. Taking the letter and giving it a haunty look when it attempted to eat his fingers, he opened it. Yep, he guessed right. File that paperwork...

Harry shooed the owl away, not writing a reply. Instead he sighed, rubbed his temples, cleaned his glasses with his Ministry robes and began planning a long chewing-out of his auror crew. They were slacking far more than was safe for this situation. If the attackers were the villains of this war, they were out there, right now, planning to harm others.

§º§

Ginny,

When you get off work, can I ask if you can buy a headache reliever?

Thanks,

˜Harry

§º§

To: All aurors in building

Get your asses in here now.

From: Head Auror Potter

§º§

Kingsley,

Did you hear Harry dressing down the aurors? Some of the things he called them! I've never heard him so foul!

Arthur

§º§

I'm aware, Arthur. I helped him. Really, they've been disgraceful.

Though I do admit his language was a bit more creative than I've ever heard.

Minister Kingsley

§º§

Dad•

I fear that shall be all over the news! Harry Potter Swears Down His Aurors! Such foul words mine father's tongue can recite!

Right, here's something for the headache, added a potion for sore throats, and no complaining about the taste.

I'll be back in a few days, got picked to fly over the site and see if we could spot anyone.

Yes, I know that there's enemies out there, I'm armed.

Your Eldest,

JS•Potter

§º§

Harry Potter,

Can we use your telling-off of your Aurors as a joke column in the _Daily Prophet_? If things keep going this way, there won't be much left to laugh at soon.

Fred Weasley the II

(By the way, Gran's making that soup, Burrow for dinner tonight!)

§º§

[_Weekly notes on Harry's desk_]

James is ridiculously dramatic. Shouldn't have named him after Da and Sirius.

Lily's patronus-elk. Interesting...

Lily and Al are okay. Lily and Al are okay. Al and Lily are okay. They are okay. They're [tearstains]

Al's baby blanket was found behind a potted plant where he lost it twelve years ago.

This is best they're giving me? Results not conclusive?

Need new glasses

Again

James will not get killed. James will not get killed. James will not die. James won't die.

I'm afraid, Hermione that

No, 'Mione, I don't want

I don't need a kitten with six

_How the hell do I refuse a kitten with six sets of canines? She shouldn't be asking at all!_

Note: buy cat food.

The eyes remind me a bit of Lily...

I see my children in everything.

§º§

Ginny,

Hermione is conning people into taking home slightly dangerous kittens. How do you feel about a pet with twelve sharpened canines?

˜Harry

* * *

I love Hermione. Seriously.


	4. Chapter 4: Suspended Roses

You all may wish to know that this chapter, being of C4, is highly dangerous. This plastic explosion of a chapter just might bring down the house in some revelations!

* * *

Rose wasn't sure of anything right now. There was no light for her eyes to adjust to, there was no way to keep track of time. Her internal clock said it might have been a few days, but she wasn't paying it any attention. It was easier to keep her mind blank.

She was swung over a large gap, feet caught in a mess on one side, arms anchored around objects on the other. Her limbs had long given up burning protest, and she hung. Nowhere to go, nothing to think, nothing she could do. Not enough room on either ledge to move her body to.

Her first thought was, as if some place had been analyzing without telling her, '_Would have been flattened in the library.'_

With the thought came the notion it was true, all those ancient bookcases and the leatherbound monstrosities within, if the explosives didn't light them all up...

She had an image, the ceiling falling in, the walls collapsing, and students frozen in fear as it came down onto them...

It was so vivid, she shivered. She could even see a few faces. Dariana Zabini, Emma Watson-she was only a first-year, Mike Birch...

A cry slipped from her lips. Who else was dead? Was Lily? Hugo? Dominique? She had so many relatives here, and any of them... Tears slipped down her cheeks, and her mind seemed to fog over, rational thought clouding. The memory sprung to perfect attention with a name. _Deryn…_ Was he okay? He had to…

_The stairs echoing her footsteps back, she's grinning, she knows who's at the top. She can already feel his lips, heat of his fingerprints on her skin. She pretends otherwise, but he has control over her._

_Voices. One-Deryn. The other-unfamiliar. An adult. Deryn's saying something, shouting-_

_Bright lights, a disappearing staircase. Rose is plunged down._

She shuddered again, shaking the memory away. She survived. She would be fine. So would he. Someone would dig her out, she'd massage her limbs back to life and then find him, and it would turn out she was wrong, the library hadn't collapsed.

But, of course, she was never wrong, was she? Rose Weasley, daughter of Hermione Weasley-Granger, expected to always be right. She had strived so hard to fit that public expectation, she wasn't sure she could be anything but, in knowledge. Deryn had been something a little different, something that she wasn't expected to do, something against the grain the media had laid out for her life. He wasn't right, wasn't perfect, wasn't anything but a Slytherin student who just went on with his life.

Rose would give anything to be that. But even Al had some constant little article talking about his current "struggles" with Slytherin. Sorting Hat's first mishap, they said. They somehow found ways to link everything that went wrong with him or his visible life all the way back to being supposedly missorted. She couldn't ever see why they couldn't just accept it. Al was a snake. Even his initials shouted that-A.S.P. Asp.

Somehow, that name brought to life whispers. An elderly man, talking...

She must have fallen asleep. Rose opened her eyes to a dream. Albus Dumbledore was perched on the air next to her. "Hello."

"I-Am I asleep? Because you're dead, but you're not a ghost, so it has to be in my head." She sounded stupid, but in this situation, who was here to care?

"Of course it's in your head, child. There's little else for it to be."

His eyes had a slight twinkle, over the half-moon glasses. She focused on his crooked nose. "Why would I dream about this? I've never met you."

"Perhaps, you're looking for answers, so your mind used the first old man it could think of."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense..." She hung quietly a moment. "Professor Dumbledore, what's it like, to be dead?" It was a test question. She had her own theories, so she wanted to see if he used them. If not, this wasn't a dream...

"I'm afraid, young Weasley, that it won't matter what I tell you. Death is different for each person. Even the act of it is different."

"But what do you do? You have to do something. What do you do when you're dead?"

"Miss Weasley, you have the inquisitive mind of a young child. Only the answers you want will satisfy you." He appeared to recline slightly. "It's a delightful little adventure."

"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure," Rose quoted. "But if it's not? I'm only seventeen, Professor Dumbledore, and I'm not great like my uncle. I don't organize my mind in case I die that day. Will death be an adventure for me too?" She felt like she was reverting to a child, faced with this man of infinite and elderly wisdom. Her life had been surrounded by most people under fifty, making them young for witches and wizards.

"I think, Miss Weasley-You are Weasley, correct?" She nodded. "Rose," she added. "Well, Miss Rose, I think that if you take the time to consider death, then you are organizing it after all."

Rose nodded, a small something in her chest loosening. "I don't want to die though."

"Of course not. The young should never wish for death. They should wish to see their first adventure through before beginning their next. Of course, they are not always given that chance."

Rose stared above her. She could see nothing, of course, Dumbledore seemed to have his own light that extended no farther than his skin, so she couldn't tell. Above her could be space or rafters or rock.

"Why are you here, Professor Dumbledore? You didn't leave a ghost behind when you died." She tried to look for an explanation, before deciding that maybe some things just happen.

"My dear young lady, as a Headmaster it was my duty to ensure the safety of my students. I cannot give that up now, when they in the worst danger they have ever been, just because of a lack of a physical body."

"Are you going to stay here long?"

"It will depend. Do you need me here?"

She wanted to say yes, because he was like every kind grandfather she had ever met, but then she thought of young first-years, all alone in this darkness... "I think others might need you more... But I want to ask one last question. There was this moment, when I thought of the library, and it was like a vision, I could see its collapse. How is that possible, if I wasn't there? It's already happened, it's not like seer powers..."

Dumbledore seemed to focus on something. "Sometimes, Rose, I found that Hogwarts feels alive, don't you?"

"Well-I guess, but-How-"

"All that energy and magic, the people who have lived and died here-It would be no wonder if that all soaked into the stones over the centuries. Don't you think?"

She closed her eyes, useless as it was, putting it all together.

"Hogwarts-the grounds-it's all becomes aware, hasn't it? A sort of ambient spirit?"

She could imagine that twinkle brightening in agreement. "Perhaps. But that theory would need testing..."

He was gone. Rose lay back, and on the edge of hearing, she imagined there was a slow, deep pulse.

Or maybe she didn't.

* * *

Ooh, spooky!

But yeah, I always wondered how many of the NextGen would react to meeting Dumbledore. So...

Review, comments, ideas, opinions, predictions!


	5. Chapter 5: Caged Bird

I'm sorry this took forever! Got stalled at Lucy's first bit...

* * *

Lily woke with a very stern McGonagall looking down at them. "I-Professo-Headmistress!" She nearly said something about dreaming of the tower collapse, but realizing that she still couldn't feel her lower legs, knew that wasn't a dream. But was this a rescue?

No. They were still trapped, three cousins spread along a dug out route in darkness.

"How did you get down here?"

"Miss Potter, when someone attempts to attack one's common room, the correct course of action is NOT to curse them! Do you hear me?"

"I-I'm sorry, Headmistress."

"Nevertheless, I commend your bravery and choice of curse. It gave Neville Longbottom the few seconds he required to cast the charm that saved all of you."

"I-"

"Thank you, Miss Potter."

"How did you get down here? Is help coming? What's going on?" Questions spilled out quickly.

Professor McGonagall took off her hat, and Lily noticed that she looked a bit younger, a bit less careworn, a few more streaks of black in grey-white hair.

"Miss Potter, there are very few restrictions on where the dead can go, but very many on where the living can. Now, Hagrid is beginning to dig for survivors, but it will take time."

"But what's going on? The rest of the school is fine, right? Why are you dead?"

And she hit herself over the head. Of course they brought down the entire school. There was little point to just one tower. So of course, McGonagall was dead, and so was Professor Longbottom, and many of her fellow students. Hagrid must have been out in the Forbidden Forest, he said he would have special treats for end-of-year Care of Magical Creatures...

"We're not sure what's going on, child. Just be careful."

She disappeared. Lily sighed in the darkness, waved her wand to watch the tip light up and destroy her nightvision. It was blinding, but the light was fascinating. It was a focus.

Lucy sat up, yawning. "What's going on?"

"A visit from McGonagall. It's nothing important, cous."

She immediately crawled over. "McGonagall? What did she say, how did she get down here?"

"Because she's dead, duh," she said harshly.

"But-She's the Headmistress! She's not dead, she's supposed to be runnin' the school and getting help and transfiguring rocks into things that help dig! She's not dead!"

"She was also elderly, in one of the highest towers in the school, alone and uninformed until the explosion happened. She probably never stood a chance, Lucy."

Lucy had tears in wide eyes, staring at her like she was a monster. "I-I don't believe you."

"Yeah, you do that." She turned her back, feeling cold inside.

_I cannot pick up these s h a r d s myself their edges of frozen feelings slice my fingertips._

But unlike now, she was leaving the shards, letting what she had depended on litter the ground. This was war, emotions got you killed in war. She imagined sweeping them away, locked with a dream of freedom, and the key tossed away.

Dreams... She had lots of those. Dreams of being an auror and old childhood dreams of growing up, faded pink dreams of a small house in the woods with a sunset view on a hill. Dreams of Hogwarts and princesses and conversations with paintings that came in sienna tones of age. New dreams, colors vibrant, of her and Scorpius, being held and touched and kissed until the feel of his lips were imprinted on her skin, dancing in a room made of the world where the sky was the ceiling and the moon the chandelier, developing dreams of a wedding where the decorations changed with her passing thought and all that stayed the same was that she didn't want a white dress.

Like holiday photos and scrapbooks, she packed her dreams up in boxes and stored them away. Maybe one day she'd get a chance to admire them again, but for a girl who grew up on war stories, she knew how much war changed people, and how easily dreams could go up in flames.

Lily stared at the sharp-edged shadows, not quite seeing them, until she finally took a deep breath, bundled the tears she wanted to let out, and sighed.

She felt empty, but no inclination to fill the hollow.

"We can't stay down here, we'll suffocate," she said. Crouching, she put her still glowing wand between her teeth, letting her hands find the place in their little tunnel where they could dig safely.

"But-how do we-We could collapse it! We could DIE!"

She stopped in the act of easing out a chunk as big as her head.

"Molly, don't think about it, okay? Just let your hands do the work. There seems to be an instinct to this." Wand back in teeth, (She could almost hear Oliver over her shoulder, chiding her for such treatment of it) she continued working. They weren't going to die, they weren't going to stay, they would live, they would win. They would win. They would win.

It became a sort of rhythm, chipping and cracking her nails, cuts on her hands appearing and bleeding and healing and bleeding, catching just-shifting stone and leaving smears of blood and dirt as she jammed something to hold it into place.

"She's insane," Molly whispered behind her. Lily ignored her, keeping the rhythm. It was only a game. Dig out and win. Like Quidditch, catch the snitch and win. Only the snitch was sunshine here.

Her arms began to ache, time whisking by and taking her strength, but she ignored it. She was going till she collapsed, then she would get right back up and keep going. She wasn't letting Molly and Lucy stay down here and hide in a premade grave.

"Lily!" A hand grabbed her shoulder. "Lily, you're bleeding!"

She looked down at her hands and realized that yes, she was, again. She managed to get a total of three and a half feet in, which was good time for a lone girl. She nipped a splinter out with her teeth.

"It doesn't matter, Lucy. We have to get out."

"But it could get infected and then you'd get sick and die!"

"I'll be fine, cous! Come on, I snuck into all four common rooms without getting killed in one night! And nobody knows where the Hufflepuff common room even is!"

"But this is different. This isn't a common room where all you do is find the entrance and say something. This is dangerous!"

"She's quite right," said a calm voice. They looked behind them at a pair of feet wearing boots and wizard robes.

"Narrow accommodations, I see." The legs crouched, and they were looking upon the face of Albus Dumbledore.

Molly screamed.

"Now, now, dear Weasley! Calm down! I am sure you have seen plenty of spirits before, there is no need for hysterics!"

Molly took a deep breath. "'M sorry, you surprised me," she muttered. Lily rolled her eyes at her red face.

Lucy seemed barely able to hold in her delight. "Mister Professor Dumbledore sir!"

"Professor Dumbledore will do."

"I've always wanted to meet you! I tried to sneak into the head office to see your portrait!"

"I'm sure you did."

"Is Lily like the real Lily, because she's being insane right now."

"I'm trying to get us out," Lily snapped.

He smiled lightly, eyes bright in the gloom. "Lily is the real Lily too, dear child. Being the second does not make you fake."

Lily wanted to turn back to her digging. She didn't like being named after anyone. It gave her a preprinted guide to what her life was supposed to be: grow up, get married, have a son. That was all to Lily the first's life, with death for love thrown in.

_I am a living g h o s t_

_Life set before me in «textbook» font_

_E_

_M_

_P_

_T_

_Y_

_Vessel for another's dream_

_Of a [cardboard doll] wife and *son*_

"But is she like the other Lily?"

"I think..." Lily shoved a large stone out of her way. "Lily is like herself. While there is much sentiment in naming a child after another, I think it would be cruel of Fate to force them to follow that life."

Lily smiled slightly, ducking under a beam she had dug around. "Thanks," she called back.

"You're welcome, Miss Potter."

She gouged a rock free, watching her nail split past the quick, leaking red, ignoring it.

"Lily, do you like being called Lily?" Lucy fit in next to her, stopping her from disassembling someone's trunk. It was damaged enough as it was. Lily pulled it free from the mess and opened it. Jumbled clothes and textbooks and things, girls. Rose's. Lily carefully shut it and pushed it behind her.

"No," she finally answered. "I hate it. Everyone expects me to be like my grandmother. I don't want to be some cutout paper wife!" She said this louder than she meant to. Her words echoed along their short tunnels.

"My dear child, why would you think that?"

"All my grandmother is famous for is being so loving she died for someone. A heroic sacrifice, yeah. Whatever. But nobody praises anything else she's ever done! Not her best classes or her OWLs or NEWTs or anything! So all I get to do is be somebody's loving wife!"

"Lily was excellent at charms."

"I invent."

Dumbledore smiled. "Like those uncles of yours? I dearly enjoyed their pranks, I must admit."

Lily set her shoulder to a snapped rafter, pushing up. "I want to change my name."

"To WHAT?" Molly asked. "Why wouldn't you want a flower name?"

"Something..." She carefully rubbed her hands over the almost intact stone in her way. It was as tall as their tiny roof. "Something with stars, or sky, something that isn't trapped by others limits... Like Hawk." She drew her wand, hoping she didn't bring anything down, and placed the tip against the stone. Whispering her spell, she watched a crack appear. Again, it widened. Things began to shift in warning. She stopped and backed off a few paces. It settled again.

"You three seem to be fine. I do hope you don't mind if I leave."

"Yeah, fine," Lily called distractedly over her shoulder. "See you around, Professor."

How to get around this...

* * *

I have just written a 1,700 word chapter for you folks. Since you've been slacking on reviews, you'd better be grateful! Seriously. *Grumpy review whore* Only four reviews last two chapters...

Comments, criticisms (Especially if that's why you haven't been reviewing), opinions, predictions... Send me something...


	6. Chapter 6: Hard Labor

You all should pray at Fey-Vim's feet for having the sense and courage to tell me to get my ass in gear and make shit actually happen in the plot :P

Consider the intro over!

I dedicate this chapter to Fey!

* * *

Hagrid was digging. Hagrid was panicking. Hagrid was multitasking by digging, panicking and shouting down local animal life.

"No! Buckbeak, yeh get back to the woods right now!"

The hippogriff gave him a haunty look, but obeyed, head raised high in anger. Prissy creature.

Sure that he was gone again, Hagrid wrapped his arm around another large stone and heaved, throwing it towards the edges. Below him, a gaping hole opened up, and he sighed, almost bothering to look around before pulling out his umbrella and pointing it at the dark. Light sparked at the tip and he lowered it. Nothing, nothing, nothing...

"Who's there?" a tiny voice squeaked.

"It's Hagrid," he responded.

"Hagrid! Professor Hagrid it's dark down here and I think I fell in the food stores, everything smells like raw meat and fish!"

"Now 'old on! I'll get you out!" Hagrid pulled up his umbrella, looked around, and eased his bulk onto the edge, jumping down. He landed with a heavy thud on an unstable surface, the floor here was covered in shards and stones. "Where are yeh?"

"I'm over here!"

He groped around in the darkness while his eyes adjusted, finally looking down at a tiny first-year, who had fallen into a mess, like most first-years.

"I think it's pickled herring! I don't _like_ pickled herring!"

"Rupert Grout." Hagrid's face split into a grin. "Come 'ere!" He lifted him up and hugged him briefly before swiftly holding him away. "That ain't pickled herring, young'un. What you need is a good bath."

"'M sorry, Professor Hagrid. I was just going to the kitchens for a late-night snack and then BA-BOOM! The floor was gone!"

Hagrid set him down, barely picking out the shapes of things, mostly undamaged. Good luck, that was. He lifted barrels and sacks and set them under the patch of daylight, stacking them. Rupert Grout, brown hair stained by the food he had been lying in, looked around.

"Professor Hagrid, are you sure it's not pickled 'erring, cause I was eating it!"

"Oh, it's fish, alright, but it's meant for the animals!"

"Ew!"

"Now, now, nuthin' wrong with it... Well alright, you might feel funny for a day or two, but it works well when you've got nuthin' else!"

Rupert gave him a look of childish disbelief.

"Up you go then!" He set him on the first barrel. "Climb on up, I'll look at our supplies!"

He could hear Rupert beginning to struggle upward as he went around the room, reading labels.

"Professor, am I going to sprout wings?"

"I hope not. That's for the ground-creatures, like-"

"Blast-ended skewerts, right? I heard about those from a Weasley! Said 'is da said they were real dangerous!"

"They weren't dangerous! They could take care of themselves."

"If you say so, Professor..."

Several minutes and small sounds later, Rupert called down, "Hagrid! Where are we?"

"Hogwarts! Can't yeh tell?"

"There's no Hogwarts! It's all a mess! Where's Hogwarts?"

Hagrid delayed his response, dragging a bag of nuts to the hole and throwing it up onto the surface, then carefully aiming and jumping. He grabbed hold of a rafter end, scrabbled, creaked and finally heaved himself up onto the surface.

Rupert was sitting on a flat stone and crying. "I wanna go home!"

"You'll go home, Rupert! It'll eh... It'll just take a while." He threw the bag over one shoulder, picked up Rupert and headed towards the burned out (Again) shell of his home, following the wayward trails made by the mess.

"I wanna go home now!"

"Listen here! It ain't safe! Tis best teh just wait fer rescue!"

"Can you take me home?"

"Well, no." He set Rupert down on the stoop, and he winced. "I've got teh dig out other students. It's been six days already. Now eh... You go play in the lake or summat. I've got to keep working."

Rupert nodded and trudged down to the waterside. "Poor like tyke." Then he walked right back to the rubble that was Hogwarts. There was still parts of walls reaching into the air, where they hadn't been knocked down. Hagrid moved around the edge towards one, thinking he might find someone alive. So far, he had already found three bodies, all students, and refused to dig the rest of the library until he composed himself. They were buried on the hill.

He began shifting rock and wood, back to the towering wall providing shade. The hours passed like minutes as sweat trickled down his skin, into his beard. He was digging a hole, searching, and listening to the sound of silence. He wished something would call, break it, but nothing did.

It was sunset, suddenly. The day had passed. He was about to walk to the edge, rest a bit, when he realized that the floorstone before him, a great heavy monster, was cracking.

"Again!" someone said somewhere, the voice almost unnoticeable. The crack widened.

And widened.

And the stone shattered.

Lily Potter, wild-eyed, was crouching in front of him. Hagrid was shocked at how she looked. Lily had always been a nice, neat girl, her clothes never ripped and always clean in the morning. Now she was wearing ripped school robes, jeans torn with no less than three holes, her skin all blood and dirt stains and nails torn off. He quickly pulled her up off the ground. "Lily!" He hugged her tight.

"...Hagrid."

"Hagrid!" Lucy Weasley bounded out, hugging him around the midriff. Molly the second carefully followed, dragging two beaten-up trunks. "Hagrid! You're alive!"

"Well o'course I'm alive! What else would I be?"

Molly was crying. He set Lily down and hugged the two sisters.

"Hagrid, I can't breathe!" Lucy complained. Hagrid quickly put them down.

"Sorry 'bout that. It's just..." He fumbled for a handkerchief, realized her didn't have one and apologetically blew his nose on his shirt. He sniffed, tears coming to his eyes. "You're alive!" He carefully policed them back to the grounds, keeping an eye on Lily. Her eyes kept flashing back and forth, like she expected an enemy to leap out, and she kept picking the scabs on her fingers.

"Don't do that," he chided. "They'll scar."

She stared up at him with blank, cold blue eyes. "So?"

He quickly looked elsewhere. "Buckbeak! NO!"

Buckbeak, who had been investigating the hole to the food, called his protested, but flew a short distance away.

Lucy stepped onto the grass, yelled a wordless called and immediately flopped down, burying her fingers in the grass. Molly joined her, still tugging the two trunks and running her fingers through her hair. The signature Weasley locks were now deep earthy brown. "Who's by the lake?" she asked.

"Rupert Grout. 'E was in the food, yeh see. Told 'im to play there, clean up a bit. Fell in the animal feed, 'e did."

Molly wrinkled her nose. "Well, at least he had food." She untied two strings from her wrists, standing and dusting off her jeans to head towards the lake herself. The Giant Squid, precious creature, was on the shore, staring at the tiny first-year.

Hagrid looked overhead, where stars were beginning to appear. "Well, I've got more diggin to get done 'fore sunrise."

"I'll help," Lily said immediately. Hagrid shook his head. "No, Lil-"

"I can help!" she insisted, and opened one of the trunks. Unfolding a piece of parchment, she whispered, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

Ink began to bloom across it, lines and designs that became a map. The first floor and dungeons were covered in little dots, marking students.

"See? It's all the living ones. Most of Gryffindor, see? Professor Neville's work. And a lot of Slytherin, looks like. Oh. Lyra... Well, come on!" She bounded over the stones, spry as a foal. Hagrid followed at a much slower pace.

"We should help the kitchen-elves! They're hard workers!" she called over her shoulder. Hagrid was breathing heavily. Runner, he wasn't.

When he finally caught up, she was already digging. She had a lot of energy for someone trapped for six days, he noticed. He joined her.

"I'm mad," she said suddenly. "I'm completely crazy. It gives me a strange constant adrenaline rush."

"Now hold on!"

"It's true, Hagrid. But I don't mind. I've got no emotions, no dreams and only goals to fuel me." She began dragging a timber from the mess. "It keeps me clear-headed."

Healer. Lily needed a healer. Hagrid grabbed the timber from her small hands and yanked it from the ground. Dropping it, he cleared rubble from around a great foundation stone, then wedged the timber under. Lily jumped and grabbed the free end, swinging. Hagrid pulled down the very end. The stone came up level with a rumbling sound.

"Go look!" Hagrid told her. Lily jumped over, looked down and then _jumped into the gap._

"Lily Potter, you get back up here!" he shouted. She didn't obey. Instead, Hagrid listened to the timber groan and creak, Lily dig and finally the sound of dozens of small voices. He took a deep breath, arms sore, and watched house-elves begin to climb over the edge, all taking a place on the timber. Lily was last.

"That all?"

She nodded.

"Right! Drop!"

Many tiny hands and two big ones all let go. The stone sank back deeper than ever.

"Alright, I know you're kitchen-elves and your job is to cook," Lily started, watching them and massaging her calves, "But right now you don't have a kitchen. If you think you're fit enough, there's lots of students to dig out. I've got a charmed map, I'll give out assignments!"

The house-elves immediately lined up into ranks, some adjusting their tea towels and puffing out their chests.

She unfolded the parchment again, eyes scanning it. "Alright. First and second row, Gryffindor Tower! Second, Ravenclaw! Third, forth, fifth, Hufflepuff! Sixth row, middle to right, library! Sixth row, middle to left, Astronomy! The rest of you, come get individual assignments!"

Hagrid stood by, dumbfounded. Lily Potter, prankster, had become Lily Potter, leader. A bit like her grandda, really...

She began pointing pairs of elves in different directions, all of them speeding off to obey. Once they were all gone, she continued staring, fingertips brushing the aged parchment. Hagrid tromped over.

She was staring at a place labeled Slytherin Dungeon.

"See, Al's alright!"

She didn't seem to hear him, eyes suddenly alright. "Score is alive," she breathed.

She fainted.

* * *

That is my horrible attempt to write Hagrid XD

Note the obvious borrowing of Rupert Grint's name as I place homages to our favorite actors. (Who, since I know nothing about their personalities, are probably nothing like them XD)

Please! Review, critique, opinionate, whatevers! And join Fey in making sure I actually do shit with the plot, instead of my horrible habit of taking-too-damn-long.


	7. Chapter 7: Illusionary

Since I put up last chapter during the alert-system fail, (Another one..) I'm going to bet some of you didn't read Hagrid's chapter. It's plot-important, you should.

And now a Scorpius interlude, since people were wondering about him.

* * *

Aunty had forbidden them from using magic.

Well, not all and out banned it. She had prohibited them from _saying_ spells. The problem was that very few students in the school knew non-verbal magic, being something that wasn't even touched upon until sixth year, but they did have the one advantage that most of those students were snakes anyway.

Students with still working watches who bothered to check them said it was the eighth day underground. Scorpius didn't particularly care. Time had already blurred in front of his eyes.

"That's the third one today," Al said, looking down at a note Splash had delivered. The pregnant white ferret heaved herself up onto Scorpius's lap, stretching out to display the splash of grey on her chest that named her.

"Third one of what, mister Potter?"

Aunty stood over them. Al's eyes scanned the note, which he then crumpled and tossed onto a nook where green fire had been relit. "Love note, Aunty. Trap us underground and suddenly all the snakes are in breeding season."

A well-done lie, and a rather sharp critique of behavior around the dungeons. Scorpius almost smirked as he heard the rustle of fabric, a couple splitting apart in embarrassment. Then, of course, he was reminded that he could have been one of those couples. Why couldn't Lily have been a Slytherin? She would have been an amazing snake, and they could be snogging the daylight out of each other right now, waiting for their doom...

"Don't lie to Aunty, Albus. I don't like it." Her tone was sad, silky, veiling a threatening tone. Scorpius's cheekbone throbbed just hearing it, he wasn't sure what was up with it, but it hadn't really stopped hurting this entire week. "I know you've been misbehaving this entire week. You don't want to go on time out."

Scorpius glanced at Albus and his sickened face. Time out was where one sat in the small room on the side where their Head of House sat an insane gibbering mess and tried to talk to you and managed to give you nightmares. No one was sure what Aunty and Uncle had done to him, but Miles Bletchley was broken.

"Oh, don't be stubborn! All you have to do is admit you broke Aunty's rule! Oh, I'll be so upset, but I'll get over it!"

Al rolled his eyes. "Nope."

Scorpius winced as a high heel kicked him in the chest. As he doubled over, it came up again.

Scorpius closed his eyes tightly as the shoe came away red. Al let out a strangled cry of pain.

"Oh, come on, sis! Don't do that, his family will want him back whole!" Uncle placed a hand on her arm. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and then began to do it up in a bun again.

"Oh, Uncle," she said in a condescending voice. "Don't you know? They didn't tell the Potters! Oh, poor little Albus, he's never going home!" Aunty lowered her hands and patted Al on the head, trying to gently flatten the unruly black hair, a sickening gesture after her harshness a bare second earlier. She tipped away.

Al lifted his head to Scorpius. "How bad is it?" he asked in a rough, quiet voice. Scorpius stared. The heel had missed his cheek. The toe had hit his forehead, the skin was split there. The heel itself had collided with his eye, which was now leaking blood from the green iris.

"...It's bad. Er... Your brother ever tell you any healing spells? Y-You're going to need-'Scuse me." He dashed across the common room to the little bathrooms, opened the door and puked on the tiles. He heard Al say, "That bad?" a first year scream and someone groan. He panted for air and left the door open, walking back across the room and resuming his seat to say, "Yeah," in a quiet voice. He refused to look up at him and the blood.

There went the quiet tipping of heels, Aunty passing and waving her wand as she passed the boys bathroom, the door to the Time Out room opening with a creak and shutting with a groan.

Immediately, Polaris, bless that seventh-year, bounded right over. "Hold still, Al." She gripped his chin and wiped the blood away with her sleeve, ran her wandtip over the eye, and the flow slowly began to stop. "It's slow-acting, try not to touch your eye too much, should have sight back by tomorrow. Scorpius, while we have time." She touched his cheek and the throbbing lessened. "Hm. Must have broken it."

She whirled back to the other side of the room as Aunty came back out. Al clutched at his eye, and Scorpius saw her almost smirk. "Oh, Malfoy, child, how is your cheek? Does it hurt? Aunty is sorry if it does, but she wants you to behave."

"It's fine." He stared at her eyebrows, for all appearances looking to meet her eyes. Her weight shifted. And again. And then-

"Duck!" Al pulled him to the side as a jinx hit the couch where he had been.

"Oh, little Scorpius. Don't challenge authority. You want to go back to your family, don't you? And what about little Baddock?" She turned to the first-year, who Uncle had been guarding, keeping him from noticing Polaris and her healer work. ('_Gods bless her mother, while they at it,' _Scorpius added.) "You hurt Aunty. She hurts too." She waved her wand. _"Crucio!"_ She screamed and writhed on the ground, obviously bruised limbs slapping against the walls and screams rough and hoarse, suddenly contorting, bending like a bow till her head nearly touched her heels. Aunty flicked her wand back. "See? She hurts! Apologize, Scorpius!" Her sugary-sweet voice dripped with venom.

"I'm sorry, Aunty, Baddock."

"Good, now go on time out." She pointed at the door.

"What? I-"

"Go!"

Scorpius stood slowly, headed across the room and pushed the creaking door. Bletchley, grey hair disheveled, latched onto Scorpius's arm, saying something about "The monsters, corner, eating me!" before Scorpius brushed him off.

"Two hours, Scorpius." Aunty waved her wand.

Instantly, Scorpius understood why no one liked Time Out. An illusion settled into place, monsters leaping up, the floor was red, he was chained down... The monster stood over him, a small figure at its side-

Lily. She was cold, eyes impassive, the monster changed, split, became itself and a boy...

The boy changed, sometimes Lysander, sometimes other classmates, sometimes people he didn't know, but the monster tore into him and Lily and the boy... Part of him was trying to scream it wasn't real, but she acted like Lily, talked like her, murmured to the thing with her and let it touch her.

"Don't know what I was thinking, choosing Scorpius..."

His nightmares alive, but they didn't end. Instead, Lily and the boy dissolved, becoming other people-his father with disdainful eyes ("And I called it my son. That... Thing..."), his mother, grandfather, all these people, and it all came back to Lily...

§º§

He was screaming. Eventually, the monster and Lily had become one, become his tormenter, ripping at his skin, cursing him, liquid form interchanging with so many beasts with her voice.

Scorpius looked up as Aunty sent the vision away. "Learned our lesson, Scorpius? Oh, Aunty is so sorry if that hurt. But bad children must be taught." She helped him up as he shook, still feeling claws against, in, his skin. He was untouched, though. It was almost... Confusing... He stumbled from the room, gazed around the common room with bleary eyes, it was mostly empty, the few people giving him sympathetic looks as he made his way across the room, feeling ill, ghosts of pain sweeping over his nerves.

He made it halfway up the stairs to his dorm before he curled up on the stairs in a fetal position, whimpering.

* * *

Wow, physiological torture! Remember kiddies, that's illegal! Don't do it, or Harry Potter arrests you!

Review, you know what works.


	8. Chapter 8: Glowing Purple

Much light-heartedness abounds this chapter!

Hope you guys like glow-in-the-dark mustaches!

* * *

The discovery of the Scamander Twins had led to much laughter. The two of them, trapped in a small corner of the library with several first-years, had taken it upon themselves to entertain them with stories about the creatures that were supposedly around them, grumplenargs and frankerstouts apparently abounding throughout the wreckage.

Besides, Lysander had made himself sprout a giant purple mustache that glowed in the dark and made him look a bit like a walrus.

For the third time that hour, fourteen students crowded into Hagrid's Hut, Lucy and Rupert looked at Lysander, brushing his mustache with an air of pride, and began to laugh. Lily, lying back on the stabilized remains of a shelf, rolled her eye, but smiled a bit wider.

"Lysander," Emma Watson whined, "You moved again! I can't read!" She held up the thick book she had rescued with her. Lysander stopped brushing the currently glowing pink facial hair and sat down on the burnt-out bed remains, leaning over her shoulder. She smiled and turned the page.

The glow turned orange.

Lily nearly fell off the shelf in shock, bursting out laughing. She wasn't quite sure why it was funny, but it was. Lysander's eyes gleamed, the mustache glow turning rainbow with a tap of his wand, and Lily laughed harder. The mustache turned Weasley-red, to Lysander's apparent surprise, before he suddenly grew sideburns and a beard to rival Hagrid's. Emma picked a glowing hair off her Ravenclaw robes. It was bright blue and glowed pink, and she snapped a few others off of the impressive beard, holding them over her book.

"You need a shave," Lorcan said dreamily, staring at the ceiling. "Or crumplemacs will start nesting in there. They're horribly uncomfortable."

Lily, settling down into bursts of giggles, looked down at her map again. It showed her the movements of the house-elves, which she pretended she was watching, and the movements of Scorpius, who she actually was.

"You're going to get depressed, doing that," Lucy said, taking the map. She folded it. She leaned closer. "Watch Emma and Rupert! He's so adorable!"

Rupert sat down next to Emma. "I'm Rupert," he said around a mouthful of something. "I fell into animal feed and then Hagrid found me!"

The young blond wrinkled her nose. "Pleasure," she said in a tone that said that it most definitely wasn't. "Did that animal feed happen to contain fish?"

Rupert nodded. "How did you know?"

"You need a bath, Grout," Lily called.

Rupert turned a bit red, shuffling a bit over, giving Emma some breathing space. Then he leaned back. "Whatcha reading?"

"A book."

"Well I can see that! Wotsit about?"

"Wizard knights."

"Oh." Rupert leaned a bit closer. "My gran told me a bit about them."

Emma leaned away. "Haven't you ever heard of body space?"

"Nope! I got three older brothers, nand we all go to different schools!"

"Well it means back off!"

Rupert did a slight rejected-puppy impression, hopping off the bed and shuffling towards the door.

"I'll come with you, Rupert!" Lily called. It wasn't safe to wander outdoors. One couldn't be sure what might start to enter the grounds now...

Rupert had a slight fearful look, but nodded. Lily hopped off the shelf, helped drag the groaning and screeching door open, and the two headed across the grounds towards the lake.

Eleven days, and it was already changing, becoming wilder, animals from the Forbidden Forest spilling over into what was once trampled grass and footpaths. Summer was early and the grass was growing like crazy. Lily looked up the hill at the mounds of rubble, where shifts of house-elves were working.

"Sure hope they find Daniel."

"Who?" Lily asked absently. The Slytherin Common Room had to be about there...

"Daniel Clifford! E's my best mate! I was gonna split the food fifty-fifty with him, and he was going to share all the candy his mum was going to send!" He suddenly had a mournful look. "We won't be getting any candy!"

Lily had to smile. "No, I'm sorry. There hasn't been an owl since the collapse."

Rupert wandered into a patch of grass tall enough to swamp him, which wasn't actually that big a feat-he was a tiny thing.

"Hey, Lily! Look, I'm swimming in grass!"

She looked over at him, parting the grass much like he was swimming. "I can see that. Why don't you try going swimming for real, instead of wandering towards the Whomping Willow?"

He bounded out of the grass with a panicked expression. "Never mind, I don't wanna go grass-swimming any more."

Lily rolled her eyes, and they gave the tree a wide berth.

"Are you really mad?"

"Huh?"

"Lorcan says you're crazy!"

"Course I am." She looked at the rubble again, imagining if they could just shift some of the Ravenclaw tower southwest...

"Why?"

"Because I'm a teen girl who got tossed into the wrong situation and I dealt with it by doing away with dreams, and started gaining obsessions and I dug my way out with only my nails and my wand."

Rupert stared at her. "But what did dreams ever do? Dreams are fun! Yesterday I dreamed I was in a room of ice cream!"

Lily smiled again, staring at the dark sky, before she tripped.

She'd walked right into a stump. Without feeling in her lower legs, she hadn't realized she'd stepped on a root and tripped right over the offending object. She groaned, picking herself up and dusting herself off.

"Didn't that hurt?"

Lily shrugged. Rupert stared before becoming distracted by the visiting squid on the now-close lakeshores and dashing over. "Squid's back!" He practically threw himself into the water, stretching his arms wide in a hug. The Giant Squid, large eye trained on him, raised a huge tentacle and gently curled it around Rupert. Water went all over, soaking him.

Lily splashed into the water, shivering when it hit her thighs. "Hold on." She grabbed Rupert's head, dunked it under the water and scrubbed his hair with a noogie motion. He bobbed right back up. "Lily!"

"Well, you need a bath, so deal with it! You're worse than my brothers!"

Rupert pouted, hugging the Giant Squid again. "Wish I was your brothers, your brothers are awesome and famous!"

"And I'm not?"

"You're a girl. But yeah!" he added.

Lily sighed.

The stars came out as they played in the water. Lily found herself sticking to the shallows, remembering running along the cliffside and falling in. Her stomach kept fluttering with half-there memories of Scorpius, lips on hers, shared breath...

Oh Merlin, she hoped she hadn't smelled like fish or anything...

But still. Scorpius. She burst into a fit of giggles on the way back.

"Girls are weird," Rupert muttered, arms crossed. A bat swooped overhead and he squeaked, something about flying spiders. Lily rolled her eyes, peeling Rupert away from the tree he was clinging to.

"Okay, never mind. Girls are brave. You're like a sparrow! You're small and pretty and fast and everywhere at once and if anyone attacks your next you divebomb them!"

Lily blinked. "So I'm pretty now?"

"Course! All girls are pretty!"

"Mhm... Like Emma?" Lily asked slyly. His cheeks glowed.

"No! Emma's just annoying, she's a Ravenclaw, and I'm a Gryffindor!" He crossed his arms, and apparently decided to continue his animal compairisons. "Or you're like a dog! A really awesome one! One of those friendly strays!"

They dragged the door to Hagrid's hut open, listening to the hinges protest. "Rupert thinks you're pretty, Emma!"

Emma, who now had a fire to sit by thanks to Hagrid, who was adding onto his burnt-out house just outside, squealed. "Ew!"

"I did not! I did not say that!" Rupert stamped his foot. Lily snickered, sitting back on her shelf again. She needed that, a conversation with a normal little kid. It was helpful...

Lysander was still brushing the mustache. "I think I'll keep this... I wouldn't mind a few crumplemacs... Maybe your uncle will hire me."

He was talking to Molly, who seemed to be hanging on his every word.

Lucy sat next to her, unfolding the map. "I was thinking about how we can get the Slytherins out. And I noticed. They've got company, Lily." She pointed to two dots on the map. "Do you know them? I don't. What could they be doing?"

Emilien and Bryous Macnair.

"I don't know. But however we get Slytherin House out, we've got be careful. Anyone related to Walden Macnair is bound to be bloodthirsty." And she surprised herself by folding up the map, sliding it into her pocket. Hagrid had apparently finished his add-on, because he knocked right through the wall. His head came through the windowframe. "I wouldn't mind a hand, yeh know. Tis hard work, buildin."

* * *

That it is, Hagrid. And rebuilding is even worse.

Review!


	9. Chapter 9: Snake In The Rose Garden

And now we head back a few days in our timeline, catch up on Rose, and save her!

(Yes, Zabini is saved too...)

* * *

Rose was slipping.

She was suddenly aware she was awake, that she was slipping, and that just as suddenly, she was falling into that gap she was hanging over. Her head banged harshly against the edge, creating stars, fingers scrabbling and catching on nothing, and then she slammed into ground as pain exploded like a knife-wound in her side, back to front. She sat in the darkness as her head cleared and shrieked that she was hurt, but clouded again. But she couldn't see how... She didn't have her wand, she couldn't use magic... Rose breathed lightly, watched the darkness swirl and the scent of blood slowly, slowly begin to cloud the air like heavy mist. But with it came a sudden sense of things-the pulse filled her ears, her heartbeat and the grounds. A sense of time-seven days underground. A presence wrapped around her, it having that unique feeling that could only be described as Hogwarts, comforting her.

She wished she still had tears she could cry, but her dehydrated body had nothing. She settled for dry prickling behind her eyes and a lump in her throat, resting her skull (She realized she was bleeding there too...) against a rock like it was a shoulder.

The presence instantly changed, holding her but telling her off, no don't sleep! But her head was so clouded...

She shifted her head on the rough chunk of rock and let a sharp edge poke her jaw and neck, staring at darkness.

She wondered where Lily was, Lily, Lucy, Molly, even Roxanne, all those cousins of hers, and Hugo... Dear little Hugo...

And Scorpius, that arrogant idiot-still, he'd been good at heart... Jerk with a heart of gold and glass.

She didn't want to dare think of Deryn... Deryn Zabini, who was most probably dead. But his name brought zips of light to her conscious, keeping her awake.

She wondered about that moment when she thought of the library and wondered-where was her wand?

There was an instant image, a picture of it lying several feet from a human shape wearing clothes stained with who-knew-what and blood-

Wait a second, that was her!

It was so close... Rose clung to that image, focused on the cedar wood, thinking _lumos!_

It burst into blinding white light. She shut her eyes tight and slowly tried to peel them open on several occasions. That new sense of time said ten minutes as she finally got her eyes open.

The Astronomy Tower, at the top two levels, had an impressive model of stars and planets. It was thin metal and detailed and incredibly elegant.

She was impaled on a metal bar of it. If she had just fallen a few inches over she would have missed it completely. Now knowing the cause of her pain, it seemed to multiply. Rose took a sobbing breath, tilting her head back and looked at her wand. She wanted to reach for it but was afraid of how muscles would tighten or tear around her slow cause of death.

Something tiny-a mouse-scrabbled through the wreck, sending the wand skittering over to her. It stared at her a moment with beady black eyes before instinct sent it scurrying. Rose sent up a silent prayer to whatever being out there was listening, and bent her arm to reach for the wood near her shoulder. She couldn't get herself off, she didn't have enough energy physically or magically, and she wouldn't be able to heal herself. She was going to die...

But there was something she could do.

She twitched her wrist in a parody of motion, the light from it gone, but that was enough and a silver patronus bounded through the rubble, homeward bound.

_Hey mum, dad. I don't know which of you this reached, I'm sorry. I just wanted to say goodbye. I gained a fatal wound in the collapse, only just got my wand. If I live out the night I won't have enough energy to say this then... Goodbye, Mum, Dad, I loved you both so much..._

Rose woke when the conscious told of a coming person. So close... Rubble shifted, loud in her cave and echoing in the overhead fissure. Time-thirty minutes passed before the person was identified, and she would have screamed with joy if she had a voice. Face heavily shadowed by the thin light from his wand, the olive skin of Deryn Zabini. He stared at her, and her eyes felt that dry prickling again. He took a few hesitant steps before collapsing on his knees in shock.

"Rose..." His voice was rough-his wonderful voice... It felt like forever since she'd heard a real living voice. But really-eight days, give or take a few hours (Midnight was just a few hours ago...) He reached out his arm, dirt-and-blood fingers brushing her skin-electric touch. It snapped him from his shock. Instant business. "Just hold on a little longer..." The light from his wand went out, she felt his magic sweeping her. "Bleeding injuries, nothing serious broken," he whispered. She closed her eyes and sank into his voice.

"When dealing with puncture wounds, never remove the object until emergency medical personal arrive," he recited. "Well, I'm the best we got. This is going to hurt like hell, Rose. I'll pay you back for it later." A whispered spell, wingardium leviosa, she was slowly being guided up off the ground. She almost vocalized her complaint at losing her connection to that slow, deep heartbeat, but it was lost in her sudden burst of swearing as her side came free from the bar. She was amazed she still had it in her, her voice was rough and almost lost, her mouth was dry and like sandpaper, and she was bleeding heavily all over again. She was settled into Deryn's arms however, so maybe it wasn't so bad... He laid her down on a clear patch of stones, whispering series of cleaning spells, medical and conventional. If Rose had enough blood left, she would have blushed. She'd actually pissed herself at some point... Damn the shame...

"Okay, so I'm not exactly a skilled healer, so this will take a while..." His long fingers pulling up her shirt. Smooth wood lighting against the wound edge, tracing it, Deryn whispering things. Half an hour of this passed, she could feel the seconds tick by as he repeated these motions, over and over. Her mind clouded over again.

His lips soft on hers, but harsh enough to be starved. "Don't sleep yet. I'm not finished." He continued his work, Rose licking the slight dampness his lips had left on hers. Her pain lessened bit by bit, but she still had bloodloss...

His fingers curled in her hair, wand stroking the wound there. It was healed fastest, but he stayed like that for a while, (Seventeen minutes...) one hand holding her head while the other stroked through her hair, pulling flakes of dried blood free. He pressed their lips together in another soft and yet starved kiss, before moving a short distance away. He must have transfigured a stone, he came back with a goblet, the water-conjuring spell having filled it to the brim. He propped up her head on his lap, tilting the goblet to her lips. Only the many strange bits of advice she had always collected kept her from gulping it down. She hated how weak she now was, but loved how gentle he was, eyes gleaming softly in dimmed wandlight.

She drained the goblet twice, finishing half of the third, before she finally nudged it away with her nose. He drained the rest. "Okay," he whispered, kissing her lips and cheeks, quickly nipping her jaw, "now you can sleep."

Alive. Three beating hearts-hers, his, and Hogwarts. She clung to the second heartbeat through several hours of dreamless sleep, waking to the same darkness but knowing that now was three-twenty-two. In the afternoon.

She felt so weak, but no pain. After hanging in midair and getting speared, Rose decided she quite enjoyed the feeling of liquid limbs.

Especially curled so tight against Deryn she could feel every muscle twitch. Every.

Doubly so when he wakes up, glances down at an area between his legs and blushes, attempting to move away without his actions being noticed.

"I've told you before that you're trying to be a gentleman annoys me," she whispered, trailing leaden fingertips along his shirt.

"So I shouldn't have helped you?" he asked, trying to smirk and frown at the same time.

"That's being human, not a gentleman. I was practically dying."

His lips trailed along her skin. "Well as much I'd love to, this isn't the best place, love. At least wait till we're at the surface. Maybe had a bath..."

Surface... Surface...

"The Astronomy Tower doesn't have a basement... It-Then how are we?" She suddenly sat up and regretted it. Her remaining blood rushed around unpleasantly, leaving her dizzy and sick. She stared at the chasm above her.

She lay back down and tried to think through this puzzle. Deryn pretended to pout at the sudden bout of being ignored.

Supposedly, the Astronomy Tower couldn't have a basement because otherwise it was too tall to be stable if the magic around Hogwarts ever failed. It had been a castle built with time in mind.

She thought...

"They were hiding something," she said days later (Five days, six hours and twelve minutes). "Someone was. It could have been anything, after all Salazar Slytherin did hide a giant basilisk in Hogwarts...I know you're smirking, stop it."

"Are you sure?"

"You start snickering every time someone mentions ba-that word."

"Yeah, it sounds funny."

"That's like Lucy and word shrooms. She just starts laughing out of nowhere, always has. It's hilarious."

"Shrooms," Deryn hummed, drawing the word out. Rose snickered softly. He grinned in the light. "Shrooms," he repeated in that vibrating baritone. And Rose could now understand why it was such a funny word. She cracked up.

He yanked her out of the way as part of the ceiling fell in. They stared upward. Far above them, dawn light streamed in.

"We're closed!" Rose yelled upward.

Ropes trailed down and she grinned at Deryn. They both grabbed one and were pulled upward to sunlight.

§•§

James stared at the hill where Hogwarts had once stood, kick-starting a motorcycle that had once been Sirius Black's. He already was planning what he had to break to his father.

'_We can't get close. There's some sort of shield preventing us from getting closer than the outskirts of Hogsmead, the fringes of the Forbidden Forest, we can't even fly over. We're sorry, Da.'_

* * *

And once again, FF alerts seemed to have stopped working... Damn you, FF bugs!

Review, my minio-Faithful readers! Not minions...Why would I even imply... *shifty look*


	10. Chapter 10: Messr Sparrow

I'm alive! I have a one-shot (Possibly expandable) published, and I appear to have a Dramione in the works (if anyone out here writes/reads Dramione, I require your help to make sure they're in character...), and I'm RPing on a ff HP forum... Which is giving me more ideas...

* * *

Lily was on one of the ropes as Rose's head appeared from the gap. The first thing she said when she was set on the surface?

"You couldn't have waited half an hour? I might have gotten to snog me over my brilliance."

Zabini clung to the edge, being pulled up by a team of elves and looking a little green around the gills. "If you get me a bucket and mouthwash, I'll snog you endlessly until the day I die," he muttered. Lily crouched, grabbed both his arms and heaved him onto the rubble. He blinked owlishly, grey-green eyes looking bright in his dirtied face. "Work out much?"

"I dug myself, Lucy and Molly out of the rubble with my bare hands."

"So you finally cracked. Pining after Scorpius?"

"You're lucky your common room hasn't collapsed, Zabini. Not that it matters, they're trapped with a couple of madmen, they'll be dead by the end of the month." She turned around, bounding up onto a small mountain of rubble overlooking the building, waving her glowing wand. "Night shift-off to bed!"

The house-elves around scattered, others taking their place.

"Astronomy Tower clear! Line up!" Lily commanded. Two ranks of elves organized themselves. "First rank, Gryffindor Tower, second is Hufflepuff, Minnie I have a specific location for you." The house-elves sprinted off, tea-towels coated with dirt and dust and eyes bright at their jobs. Minnie, a tiny house-elf, stood to attention next to Lily while she unfolded a map. "You're best at getting into these spaces. Get two others and Lucy, map says Hugo needs to get out today. Go."

She ran off immediately, calling over her shoulder.

"So... When did she take up commanding?"

Rose shrugged at Zabini's comment. "Is that the Marauder's Map? The one Uncle Harry always said he never wanted anyone to attempt taking?"

"He said that to convince James he should. Hogwarts tends to get rather boring without troublesome pranksters."

"So by the map says, you mean..."

"Padfoot, Moony and Prongs are such interesting ambient spirits."

Rose nodded as if this made sense. Lily looked over the map again. "Who else," she whispered. Along the margins, words appeared. _Messr. Prongs sees nothing of interest, except that Scorpius Malfoy is in his dorms and may be changing, and Messr. Sparrow would probably love to imagine that._

Lily hid her blushing face behind the map. The map had ears. The map had personalities (Four of them, but Wormtail was mostly absent, and was treated rather coldly). The map had somehow decided that Rupert saying she was a bit like a sparrow was enough to warrant it being her new nickname.

_Messr. Padfoot agrees, and also thinks that if Messr. Sparrow's face gets any closer to the map she may get it bitten off._

_Messr. Moony thinks that would be a shame, as Messr. Sparrow has a pretty face, and needs it to drool over Scorpius Malfoy._

Lily turned around, hitting her head against a section of stone while blushing. "And they have such a sense of humor."

"Well what do you expect for something made by your grandfather?" Rose asked. Lily shrugged.

"Anyway, just head down to Hagrid's hut, give him a wave. Lysander and Lorcan are cooking today. Oh, and Lysander has an impressive beard. He grew it himself, and it glows."

Rose's eyes gleamed, probably curious about the spell, and she began heading across the shifting territory, Zabini trailing after. He was not so fond of the half-giant, like many people who've had to dodge his monstrous creatures. Most of them seemed to have a strange intolerance of Slytherins.

Once they were gone, she peered down the gap, then at the sun rising. "You guys sure there's something down there?"

_Messr. Moony thinks that Messr. Sparrow should trust us. What have we done to mislead you?_

"Well, nothing yet..." She pulled a scrap of red fabric out of her pocket, tying it around a rope. Then she flexed her fingers, folding the map and sliding it into her waistband, throwing the end of the rope back down. She began the slow task of climbing down, hands holding the ropes in a death-grip. They ached by the time she hit the ground. "_Lumos._"

The first thing she saw was the blood. One of them had been hurt. Not thinking, she reached out, scraped a bit of the dried-brown mess from the metal, licking it from her nail. Her magic met the magic in the blood, whispering Rose.

Rose had been hurt, bad. But someone had healed her-probably Zabini... She pulled out the map.

"Right guys. Lead the way."

A dot appeared on the map, faded. There was a dot labeled with her. She took a step in each direction, just to get her bearings.

"Through that wall... Alright." She folded up the map again, setting her hands in the packed stones, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. She began to dig.

It happened again, hands knowing just what to do. She dug easily now, tearing out stone and timber, enjoying the so-focused mindset. It was like writing poetry, but she didn't need to spill her pained heart on the page for it to be worthwhile. She was several feet before she pulled out the map again.

_Messr. Padfoot thinks Messr. Sparrow is insane and should not do that so often. He also thinks now you should dig down._

She was standing on the dot. She set down the map, looking at the stone beneath her feet, cracking it, shattering it, letting it become dust beneath her feet before she fell into it. Landing on paper.

_Messr. Prongs would like to say that everyone should take advantage of this gift, as it can make travel so much easier._

She picked up a sheet. Marauders Padfoot, Prongs, Moony and Wormtail present a guide to becoming animagus.

_Messr. Moony shall have to point out that Messr. Gingerkit found this before and placed it back once she was done, at his request._

Gingerkit was their nickname for Lucy. Lily, just a few weeks ago, would have been upset that Lucy had discovered such a great gift before she had, and hadn't shared. Lily of now saw a great tactical advantage, stuffing the map into her waistband, picking up the thick packet and securing it under the band of her bra along her back. She trudged back to the rope, arms burning the second she began to heave herself up. But she had to get used to this. Once they got out and found healers, she was probably going to be confined to a wheelchair forever. For all she knew, her spell was tearing her own limbs apart. She heaved herself a little higher, slid down a few feet and got rope burn, and continued right back up. Sitting up on the rubble up top half an hour later, she turned her face to the dawn. The pain across her palms had already retreated from present mind. She took a deep breath, stood, dancing through the rubble to Hagrid's hut. Time to get started...

§º§

An hour later, by the lake, she had barely skimmed the first paragraph. Rose and Zabini had been dragged into some sort of fifteen-way water fight. Now, drying in the shorebanks, they were indiscreetly snogging the ever-loving piss out of each other.

Rupert made this easier to handle by constantly glancing at them and pulling faces or miming throwing up, and then trying to talk to Emma about it. That didn't mean Lily wanted to deal with it at all. A thin stream of jealousy boiled somewhere, easily dammed at the sourced, but she just couldn't find the energy when they were so happily eating each other's faces...

They suddenly unstuck as Rupert finally convinced Emma to glance at them. There was a mutter of, "And what's so gross about hugging? Doesn't even look a bit like snogging..."

"Jealous, Potter?"

To her credit, her appearance didn't even twitch. Not a word, not a claim, not a rude gesture, not a flicker in her eyes. She sat with her chin on her knees and arms folded across them, staring.

"Wow, you really are heartbroken."

Lily turned her attention down to the guide and the map. The guide didn't read like a guide. It read like four boys trying to explain something to a friend, and getting sidetracked by every memory and sundry. Really, it was. As she read, the map gave commentary on their commentary. She noted that Wormtail was not treated cold in the guide, but forgotten, that extra person left out of photos by accident. It made her wonder who Wormtail was supposed to be, and what had happened. A bid for attention gone wrong?

"Whatcha reading, Potter?"

"If we all became animagus out of necessity, do you think the auror department would still arrest us?"

There was silence from Zabini. Rose opened the floor for questions.

"We're becoming animagus?"

"We can't stay here forever. We all have homes, families-or we hope we do. An animal would have an easier time traveling, and an animagus would preserve our minds and sanity. We could all be like Lucy."

Rose was silent as well, but only for a moment. "You know, for someone whose father is head of the Auror Department, you seem rather fond of rule-breaking..."

"You know, for someone whose father hates Slytherins, you seem rather fond of one..." she countered.

"Hypocrite."

"Smart-ass." She turned the page. "Go do something useful, like help Lorcan and Lysander dig."

"Who put you in charge?"

"No one, I put myself in charge. It wasn't anyone else was there to step up to it."

"We're here. They're here."

"Challenge me, I dare you. But unless you can think of anything without spending hours in your books-oh right, you can't. Well, you better hope the library gets saved, or you'll be braindead by the end of the month."

Rose was probably glaring at her. Lily kept reading. Maybe she was supposed to be upset that she was fighting with Rose-someone she had always looked up to-but she simply wasn't. Rose hadn't proven fit to lead, so Lily wouldn't let her. They had people to save, and they wouldn't do that by reading old books.

Of course, that brought up the uncomfortable question of whether Lily was fit when she was self-proclaimed crazy, but she shoved it aside with the thought that she was second best.

She folded up the map and guide as Lucy came down to the water, helping a limping Hugo.

* * *

I wasn't quite sure how to end this chapter, so sorry it sucks :P

A preview to make up for it: _"I swear, I'd rather put up with you sniffling over my sister-"_

_"Who?"_

Review!


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